Manila: Philippine senator Grace Poe has denied allegations that she is the love child of ex-president Ferdinand Marcos and a former actress, and responded to accusations about her dual citizenship.
Speculation has been rife that Poe lacks status as a natural-born Filipino because she never knew her real parents, amid claims her lack of 10-year residency disqualifies her to run as president or vice-president in 2016.
Critics’ allegations “try to push it [her decision to run for higher office] to 100 per cent,” Poe said on Thursday, adding, “I am qualified ... I have nothing to hide … Why are they afraid of me?”
Turning around allegations that she could be the daughter of Marcos and former actress Rosemarie Sonora, famous in the 70s and 80s (she is also the sister of Poe’s adoptive mother Susan Roces, a famous actress in the 60s), Senator Poe told ABS CBN, “The easiest would just be to say, yes the rumour is true. But it’s not. I wish it were (true), in a sense, so I can establish my natural-born status, being the (alleged) daughter of my aunt.”
“Of course they [critics] will [also] say I’m the daughter of Marcos. You know, if that were true, it would be more than just a loud whisper. Somebody would have come forward to prove that,” Poe added.
The Inquirer wrote in 2014, “Anyone old enough to remember the naughty sidelights of martial law (that Marcos established in 1972) must have heard of this juicy showbiz rumour. Then President Marcos supposedly had an affair with movie star Rosemarie Sonora, with Grace being the fruit of that dalliance.
“At the Inquirer Senate forum in Cebu City, one candidate ended his speech with a blind item: ‘Who knows what’s going to happen on election day. We may even end up with a brother and sister in the Senate, but they don’t know it yet.’”
The speaker was referring to Poe and Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. who were present at the 2013 campaign period, the Inquirer said.
The same article also quoted Poe as saying, “I told him, Senator Marcos, rumours say we are siblings. He [Marcos] replied: ‘I heard that during the campaign.’”
Poe’s documented life story says on September 3, 1968, Sayong Militar, a former caregiver for the rich Ledesma-Lizares family, found Grace, abandoned as a baby, at the baptismal font of the Jaro Catholic Cathedral in central Philippines.
Despite having five children, Militar raised the baby for two years, but later turned her over to Tessie Ledesma Valencia, then 40, single, rich, and a close relative of the Ledesma-Lizares family.
Valencia would throw lavish parties for Roces, the actress, at a family-owned mansion on Manila’s Taft Avenue. In 1974, Roces and her husband, action star Fernando Poe, signed adoption papers for the child, then six, in Metro Manila’s suburban San Juan.
Poe also defended herself from claims by Congressman Toby Tiangco, president of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), Binay’s party, who computed she would have only nine years and six months of residency in 2016, based on her certificate of candidacy in 2013, which stated she had stayed in the Philippines, at the time, for six years and six months.
In her defence, Poe said she was in the US for 13 years and returned to the Philippines when her actor-father died in late 2004. She decided to live in Manila in 2005, enrolled her children in schools in Manila June 2005 and bought a temporary home, but started constructing another house in the same year. She sold her property in the US in 2006.
“It is normal for candidates to be at the receiving end of criticisms before elections,” said political analyst Prospero de Vera.
